On Tuesday night during President Trump’s State of the Union speech before Congress, he made a vow to reach on both parties on issues to do with infrastructure, immigration and other topics that touched on American interest. However, the Democrats from the state of California are not buying whatever the President is peddling. California’s liberals blasted the tough line on immigration that the president issued in his second state of the union address which they termed as empty rhetoric towards unity in the United States. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers and politicians applauded the speech as statesmanlike and presidential.

In the address, president Trump talked about the economic success that the US has experienced under his tenure at the White House and talked about the famous American individualism and exceptionalism. Trump also called for hardliner and bipartisan talks on how to deal with the threat of global terrorism. A professor emeritus specializing in political science said that the president threaded the needle. When he started his speech, and towards the end, Trump made proposals of bipartisanship while at the same time saying that he had made it clear to his party legislators and members in general that he still had the Republican agenda in mind. The president’s remarks on the immigration issue got the most attention from California residents.

The president, however, said that he had made plans to give dreamers under the DACA program a path to citizenship while having other forms of immigration restricted. The Deferred Action Against Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a program that was instituted by President Obama during his term in office to prevent undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children from deportation. The members of the Democratic Party from California did sound as they were pleased by the deal. Senator Kamala Harris tweeted that DACA recipients popularly known as dreamers should not be treated as a chip to bargain or held hostage in exchange for policies of immigration.

Other Democrats were opposed to how the president extended the discussion regarding the gang known as MS-13. The politicians and legislators were aggrieved that Trump introduced his immigration proposal by introducing the family members of the victims who were murdered by the gang’s members. Anthony Rendon who serves as the Speaker of the California Assembly said that the presidents labelling of immigrants as people who led to the loss of American lives was misplaced and could only be termed as scapegoating.